Executive summary
The client required early validation of the Secure Boot ROM functionality to ensure a reliable and secure boot process before silicon availability. Given the complexity of modern SoCs and the criticality of secure boot mechanisms, validating these features in a pre-silicon environment was essential to mitigate risks related to functionality, debug visibility, and security vulnerabilities.
To address these challenges, an emulation-based approach was adopted using a high-performance platform that enabled realistic system-level validation. This setup allowed efficient loading, execution, and debugging of the Boot ROM code, ensuring early identification of issues and faster design readiness for downstream stages.
Key Highlights
- Pre-silicon validation of the Secure Boot ROM functionality
- Boot ROM loading and execution through SRAM
- JTAG-based debug using Lauterbach Trace32
- Trigger-based debugging with waveform capture
- Host-side compilation and execution using mci-server
